[W510] - USB 3.0 SSD, poor performance.

[Chatbox]

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dimm0k wrote:

Is 130MB/s the average from USB 3.0?

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Not sure about "average" as it does depend on a variety of things (usually the drive and enclosure, and the SuperSpeed cable).  I'm going to do some searches and see what kind of readings people are getting with high performance drive over USB 3.0.  Will get back to you on that.

[Chatbox]

Here's my latest changes (and best performance yet.  However, USB 3.0 write performance is still very poor):
NEC/Renesas USB 3.0 firmware 3.0.2.8 (from the net)

NEC/Renesas USB 3.0 drivers 2.0.32.0 (from W520)

BIOS changes:
Disable CPU power management.

Disable PCI bus power management

Hard drive tested with: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.12

( Link to other people's test on non-Thinkpad hardware  http://www.dragonsteelmods.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17055&Itemid=1 )

Ideally, should gives approx 132-135MB/s (sequential read and write).

Enclosure tested with: Hornettek Viper U3

( Link to other people's test on non-Thinkpad hardware http://www.dragonsteelmods.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17052&Itemid=1&limit=1&limi... )

With the above changes, I was able to get: 129.5MB/s seq read, ...but only 70MB/s seq write.  (As this is a benchmark, with source data generated from memory, source harddrive performance doesn't come into the picture.  i.e. I'm not copying files from one drive to another.)

Writing to external drives via USB 3.0 connectivity from the W510 is slow...and is something that I hope the forum or Lenovo, or other users can help me out with.  Much appreciated!

NOTE: Without the BIOS setting changes, and with only using the "official" Lenovo firmware & W510 USB3 drivers, I was only getting a sequential read performance of 108-110MB/s.  This extra 20MB/s read performance is very welcomed, but shouldn't PCI and CPU power management only come into play when things aren't being utilized/used?  Performance-wise, that's close to a 20% performance difference.

[hazart]

T420s is shipped with a 4015 firmware for the USB 3.0. Not sure if it has a different USB 3.0 chip compared with the W510/W701. The USB 3.0 on my W701 is running on the 3028 firmware.

[Chatbox]

Thank you for the info.

The NEC chip in my W510 is a uPD720200.

[hazart]

I've done the benchmarks using my W701 as promised and I'll let the results speak for themselves.

Notes:

1. Before each benchmark, I did a sanitary erase to restore the SSD performance to the factory state.
2. USB 3.0 firmware version: 3028 and driver version: 2.1.16.0.

eSATA results:

[hazart]

USB 3.0 results:

[Jimbo]

Chatbox, I don't know what machine was used in the performance tests you linked to (so they may have used a different USB 3.0 chipset) but, as another point of reference, here are additional USB 3.0 benchmarks using the same NEC uPD720200 chipset used in the W510:

SSD tests:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-star-usb-3-controller-test/3

hard drive tests on W510:

http://www.cio.com.au/article/338158/usb_3_0_new_speed_limit/

Of course, you want to make sure that everything within the Power Manager utility is set to highest performance mode, with the W510 plugged into AC and with a fully-charged battery installed, and I would power the drive enclosures with their own AC power cord. You also want USB 3.0 cables no longer than 9 feet.

I would also try to get someone to run similar tests on a W520, to see if the issue is specific only to the W510's generation.

Best of luck.

[ThorsHammer]

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Chatbox wrote:

Here's my latest changes (and best performance yet.  However, USB 3.0 write performance is still very poor):
NEC/Renesas USB 3.0 firmware 3.0.2.8 (from the net)

NEC/Renesas USB 3.0 drivers 2.0.32.0 (from W520)

BIOS changes:
Disable CPU power management.

Disable PCI bus power management

Hard drive tested with: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.12

( Link to other people's test on non-Thinkpad hardware  http://www.dragonsteelmods.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17055&Itemid=1 )

Ideally, should gives approx 132-135MB/s (sequential read and write).

Enclosure tested with: Hornettek Viper U3

( Link to other people's test on non-Thinkpad hardware http://www.dragonsteelmods.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17052&Itemid=1&limit=1&limi... )

With the above changes, I was able to get: 129.5MB/s seq read, ...but only 70MB/s seq write.  (As this is a benchmark, with source data generated from memory, source harddrive performance doesn't come into the picture.  i.e. I'm not copying files from one drive to another.)

Writing to external drives via USB 3.0 connectivity from the W510 is slow...and is something that I hope the forum or Lenovo, or other users can help me out with.  Much appreciated!

NOTE: Without the BIOS setting changes, and with only using the "official" Lenovo firmware & W510 USB3 drivers, I was only getting a sequential read performance of 108-110MB/s.  This extra 20MB/s read performance is very welcomed, but shouldn't PCI and CPU power management only come into play when things aren't being utilized/used?  Performance-wise, that's close to a 20% performance difference.

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Quick question: Is the external drive or enclosure connected to the W510 at power up, or after Windows is up and running with the USB 3.0 driver fully initialized?

[Chatbox]

Not connected at power up.

Physically plugged in to the USB 3.0 port after Windows is running/loaded/logged in, with 0-1% CPU load for background service.

(how can one run a benchmark on a drive when the driver is "not" fully initialized?  Is that even possible?)

[Chatbox]

Looks like the USB 3.0 implementation on the W510 is a half baked job. Lenovo was trying to get (one of) the first to have "USB 3.0" on the market.

Got to say, "faster" than USB 2.0 doesn't make it USB 3.0. Having a USB 3.0 chipset in the laptop doesn't make it USB 3.0.

USB 3.0 is a technical design specification, with performance standards.

At the end of the day, I feel that what I paid for due to what's advertised is not what I'm getting.